sofia
Posts by Sofia:
On this day in queerstory: fighting for queer rights in the workplace
December 13 quietly marks progress, sometimes small and sometimes transformative, in the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights. In the United States, December 13, 1976, saw one of the earliest and most consequential legal challenges to workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. The City of New York Civil Service Commission faced a complaint from several municipal […]
On this day in queerstory: ACT UP Toronto protest demands AIDS medication access
December 12 is a day that shows how visibility often emerges not from a single victory, but from a sequence of interruptions, scandals, breakthroughs, and brave refusals to comply. We begin in 1989, in the chilly aftermath of that year’s World AIDS Day. On December 12, activists with ACT UP Toronto staged one of Canada’s […]
On this day in queerstory: US prepares to remove homosexuality from the DSM
For many LGBTQIA+ people, December is a season of contradictions — celebration entwined with reflection, joy mixed with remembrance. And December 11 has long been one of those layered days. Each year, it seems to gather a surprising number of flashpoints: political, cultural, artistic. Today’s look back moves through courtrooms, cinemas, and activist circles, tracing […]
On this day in queerstory: Human Rights Day
December 10 is officially recognized around the world as Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. For LGBTQ+ communities, the date has taken on additional weight over the decades — not because the declaration originally protected queer people (it did not), but because so […]
On this day in queerstory: ECHR forces LGBTQIA+ law changes in Northern Ireland
Across continents, this date captures the slow but steady cadence of LGBTQ+ history: not always dramatic, but always moving. One of the most consequential December 9 milestones unfolded in 1979, when the European Court of Human Rights delivered its judgment in Dudgeon v. United Kingdom. The case challenged Northern Ireland’s criminalization of same-sex intimacy — […]
On this day in queerstory: birth of Clause 28 prohibiting ‘promotion of homosexuality’ in UK schools
In 1981, a major milestone of queer musical visibility happened: on December 8, 1981, the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus became the first openly gay musical group to perform at the storied Carnegie Hall. What might today seem routine was then unthinkable — a full hall of public listeners attending an explicitly gay choir. […]